


Champion

by exactly13percent (superagentwolf)



Series: The AU Court [10]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sports, Fluff, Gymnastics, M/M, Short One Shot, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 02:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15208916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superagentwolf/pseuds/exactly13percent
Summary: Andreil Week 2018|Day 7: Champion, Practice, Fear-Being a gymnast is not something that typically requires running. It's also not for people that are afraid of heights.Neil and Andrew really fucked themselves over. Maybe there's one good thing that can come out of it, though. Maybe meeting each other is enough.





	Champion

No matter how many times he flew through the air, there was always a moment of—

—something.

When he left the bar and flipped—when he knew where he was supposed to land but didn’t know if he could—Andrew always felt a moment of something. The dust on his hands, the anticipation of finishing the move, the knowledge that someone watched him.

Andrew never fell from the bars, but he felt like it was just a matter of time before he slipped and died.

* * *

“Kevin’s bitching about the Olympics again,” Nicky says. His long body is laid out on the mat and he stretches easily, curls brushing his knees as he lifts his torso up and over his legs.

“He’s always bitching.”

“Yeah, but he’s going hard.”

“About what?” Allison finally asks. Renee helps her wrap her left hand as they sit together, a pile of bobby pins between them.

“Some guy he wants to bring over. Says some small-town coach sent a reel and Kevin just knows he’s going to be the last one.”

“He’s obsessed with the best team,” Allison says. She snorts. Nicky just shrugs.

She’s not wrong. Andrew knows Kevin. He knows why Kevin is so obsessed with making the perfect team and winning gold. Kevin escaped the thumb of Tetsuji Moriyama, the most ruthless coach in the nation. Moriyama had cultivated half a dozen gold medalists, but Kevin knew the real cost of the training. He had an injured wrist to prove it.

Kevin could compete, but it was the principle of the matter. He’d been pushed a step too far, and now he was trying his luck with a small-time gym and Wymack.

“What’s his specialty?” Renee asks.

Nicky grins. “Vault.”

* * *

Neil always feels best when he’s running.

He likes that part of his training. He could run for days. It’s why his coach set him up to vault—Neil has the speed he needs to get him high, fast. He has the best time of anyone he’s ever known. It makes him good, but it also makes him stand out.

He stands out, and that means it’s only a matter of time.

When Kevin shows up, his mouth set in a line and his eyes determined, Neil has half a mind to run. Instead, he faces Kevin. He faces the facts—

—that he is fast—

—he is good—

—and he is all Kevin needs to have the perfect team.

* * *

Andrew watches Kevin come in with Neil.

The gym is in full swing, which he assumes is what Kevin planned. No one is paying attention, except for Andrew.

The man is small. Andrew isn’t sure how old he is, but he’s thin and lean, with a mess of red hair. He wears sweatpants and a jacket, but Andrew can see the scars on his face and knows there are more hidden under his clothes.

He won’t be able to hide, when he competes.

Kevin stands with his arms crossed as he walks the stranger through warmups. He doesn’t need to—Andrew can see innate talent in the newcomer, from the way he walks with deliberate steps to the way he stretches like his body is meant to be in motion.

Andrew might be staring too much.

The good thing about Andrew’s specialty—the still rings—is that he has to hold himself in place for a while. So when he takes them in his hands and holds his body parallel to the floor, he watches Kevin and his protégé.

The redhead moves like a ghost. That’s the best way Andrew can think to explain it. He moves like he isn’t part of the world around him; like the rules don’t apply.

When he runs the mat and his hands push him into a vault, he moves like physics don’t apply to him.

Andrew watches the stranger flip, his body in a controlled spin, and he wonders how the hell it’s possible. If this person is even real. There is no way he should be able to do what he does. Especially not with the scars on his face, or the way he is always just out of reach. Out of touch.

There’s a ghost in the gym, and Andrew can’t take his eyes off him.

* * *

Neil can feel eyes on him. He knows people are watching, but he can’t focus on them. He has to focus on the line before him and the way he can see the vault play out in his mind. He has to make it.

He runs and runs and when his hands push him up and away, he flies.

He always closes his eyes for a second, in the air. His last coach would tell him not to. For the love of God, Josten, he said. Open your eyes.

Neil lands almost perfectly—as always—and exhales. The rush and pound subsides, and he should feel complete. He does, but he also feels like an animal at the zoo.

Someone rushes over. A tall stranger with brown limbs and a halo of curls. He has a wide smile that shows two perfect dimples.

“That was amazing! Wow! You’re so small,” he adds, with the kind of voice Neil hears people talk about puppies and stuffed animals with. Neil isn’t sure what to say.

“I—thanks,” Neil says, hesitant.

“I’m Nicky. I’m always on the horse,” he says, with a cheeky wink.

Kevin rolls his eyes. “You’re not on it now,” he says pointedly. “You gold material already?”

“Yeah. I mean, Erik put a ring on it,” Nicky says. He grins and wiggles his fingers. One of them has a perfect gold circle around it. “So, what’s your name?”

“Neil.”

“Neil. Well, I’m glad you’re here. If you need anything, just ask! None of us bite. Allison seems like she might, but I promise she’s fine. Don’t listen to Aaron; he’s competing with Kevin in the bitch event. Oh—and, um…try to…stay away…from Andrew.”

“Andrew?”

Nicky looks apprehensive, like saying the name is going to summon whoever he’s talking about. He looks over his shoulder and then leans into Neil. “You see the guy on rings?”

How could he miss him? Neil saw the stranger the moment he walked in. The first thing he noticed was that he had a twin. The second thing he noticed was the staring.

“Yeah.”

“That’s Andrew. He…uh, he’s really particular. About who Wymack brings in,” Nicky says. He winces in sympathy and Neil doesn’t know why. “He might try to scare you. If you need help—”

“No. I think I’ll be fine.”

Couldn’t be any worse than what he’s seen before.

Neil listens to Nicky talk about their routines and how dramatic Kevin is with his floor routines—which Neil believes—and then the day wears on.

Wymack gives him a schedule. It feels good to Neil, even if he’s uncertain about everything else in his life. The schedule makes him feel like he has somewhere to go. Something to look forward to.

Andrew watches him all day and Neil tries not to look. He feels the gaze on his shoulders and wishes something would just happen. He’s not keen on being the one to act, but he can handle when another person makes a move. If Andrew would just make a move, he thinks, it would be great.

He’d like to get Andrew out of the way.

* * *

Andrew watches Neil fly over the bars like he was made to be in the air and his hands itch. He wants to hold something and he doesn’t know what.

Neil lands and Andrew notices there’s no one else around. The perfect opportunity.

“Your dismount is messy.”

He sees a tiny twitch; not quite a jump. Neil turns to look at Andrew and his mouth flattens a little. He rubs the white dust on his palms and walks off the mat. “I know.”

“Then fix it.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Doesn’t look like it. You haven’t changed since you stepped in,” Andrew says. His urge is to push and push until something breaks. Until he sees the truth about Neil and the scars he carries, laid out for Andrew like so many knives on display.

Neil contemplates Andrew. His fingers absently tug at his shorts that are old and too short. They ride up his legs, but instead of skin, Andrew only sees the tight black leggings Neil wears underneath.

He really does not need to be concerned about what Neil wears.

“Are you going to help me?” Neil asks.

Andrew almost laughs. He almost does just because there’s an old reflex he can’t kill. Instead, he stares. He watches Neil dust his hands on the back of his shorts and tries not to think about how they’ll leave chalk prints on his ass.

“No. I don’t care.”

When he walks away, Andrew wonders why he feels like he’s the one that lost ground.

* * *

Kevin starts to drive Neil into the ground. Andrew hangs at the edges of the gym and watches with a water bottle in one hand and his phone in the other.

The first night, Neil asks Kevin, “Why doesn’t he practice?”

“He doesn’t want to.”

“If that’s all it takes—”

“No. He doesn’t want it,” Kevin says sharply. “He has to step out here because he wants to. I won’t make him.”

Neil doesn’t point out all the things he thinks are wrong about Kevin’s argument. He does what he’s told and forgets the world while he practices dismounts over and over again. Neil pushes himself to run faster and fly higher and he hears Kevin’s voice in his head even when he leaves the gym.

They might make gold. He’s not sure. All Neil knows is that he’s never pushed as hard as he’s pushing now, and he doesn’t know how long he can keep it up.

But he hast to last. He has to last just long enough.

* * *

They’re at a minor competition, but nothing is minor to Kevin.

Especially not when Tetsuji is there.

Of course, so is Riko. Neil sees him in the hallway at one point, his eyes sharp and his hair pressed so neatly to his head that not even a rock could knock it out of place. Neil just sends silent negativity to him the entire time.

“Ready?” Matt asks. He’s their champion of the horizontal bar, and he does the best job at flying. Sometimes, his girlfriend comes to see him when her schedule allows it. They’re sickeningly supportive of one another. If Neil had an opinion about relationships, he’d probably classify them as cute.

“Yeah. Ready.”

“Neil is never not ready,” Nicky says cheerfully. “He was born running for the vault.”

He’s half right.

The competition goes as it always does. Mostly, it’s a game of internal silence and preparation. They’ve all trained. All they can do is make it through and hope their scores carry them high enough to catch someone’s attention.

All they can do is hope to match or beat Riko, all the way up to Olympic qualifications.

Neil tunes out the world. Nothing matters to him but the floor and the next event. He ghosts his way through everything, right until he makes it to the vault.

This is it. It’s the one thing he’s never been able to do.

The coaches always look at him with sad eyes. Disappointment. They ask why he did so well in the gym and why he was never able to repeat it outside.

Neil never answers. He never says, I can’t run from the eyes out there. Instead, he runs. He runs before the inevitable dismissal.

Today, Neil thinks about the Foxhole. The gym he bet his last chance on. Kevin, with his burning desire to make it just one time—the rest of the team, with their smiles and support as Neil tried to carve a place for himself that wasn’t too big and wouldn’t shove anyone else out.

Even all the thinking doesn’t do more than make him fear.

It’s fear that’s in his heart.

Not fear for himself—he’s always known he’s not worth much anymore, and that worth diminishes with every day he isn’t of use—but fear for the Foxes. For the first time, he feels like his teammates understand him. Know him, even if they don’t know.

He wants to be strong for him. He doesn’t want to let them down.

He runs and vaults, but the landing is just the same as always. Just a little slip that’s never there in the gym, and he knows it’s a deduction. Not one that will disqualify or hurt him, but one that matters. One that matters to someone that’s supposed to be the best in the country.

Neil doesn’t look for his teammates’ faces, after. He goes to the locker room.

And then he realizes that it’s open.

He has a moment of complete panic when he realizes. He thinks of course, this would happen. He’s so stupid, he never remembered to ask. To say something.

The Foxes will notice. If he doesn’t do anything, they’ll notice.

There’s a small alcove toward the side of the showers. Neil nearly rips his clothes off and throws the water on. He doesn’t bother to make sure it’s warm enough. All he knows is that he has to finish before anyone else comes in.

He is barely done rinsing soap out of his hair when he hears the soft tap of feet against water and tile. Neil freezes, his shoulders automatically pulling toward his chest. Curling into himself. He feels his heart claw its way up to his throat.

When he turns, he sees Andrew. His face is calm—assessing—and there is no hint of emotion at what he must see.

At the scars on Neil’s back and legs. The patchwork of burns, cuts, and furrowed stitch marks. A good half of it was from his family. The other half was from his coach.

“Two minutes,” Andrew says. He turns and leans against the wall like he didn’t just walk in on Neil. Like he meant to light a cigarette all along.

Neil flushes himself with cold water and yanks his towel from the wall where it rests. He doesn’t bother to dry off; he grabs his clothes and locks himself in a stall. His hair drips on the floor while he stares at the door and his breath is still thin in his chest.

He hears the others come in. Andrew doesn’t speak. Neil towels off his hair when his heart stops thundering and he dresses. When he comes out, he manages to get past the showers and out of the locker room without being seen.

Andrew doesn’t say anything on the ride home. The Foxes don’t mention Neil’s stumble.

No one confronts him, and he spends the night waiting for something to happen. When they get back to the gym, Neil wants to pull himself into a ball and forget. Forget his mistakes and forget his secret.

Instead, he watches the minutes tick by and drags himself to the shelter he stays at every night. He has no home.

* * *

Andrew doesn’t want to think about it.

He doesn’t, but Neil keeps coming into his head. After the first competition, Neil walked on glass for weeks. It took two more competitions for him to go back to what he was before.

Except now, the others notice that Neil is different, outside of the gym.

No one says anything, of course. But they know. They know and Neil knows they know. He’s miserable and Andrew shouldn’t care, but he does.

“Don’t,” Andrew says.

Neil turns, startled. He’s a step away from the mat that leads to the vault. “What?”

“Stop. You think too much.”

“I don’t. Allison tells me I don’t think enough.”

“She doesn’t know you.”

“And you do?”

Neil looks back at him with clear blue eyes and Andrew wishes he could cover them. It would be so much easier to think.

Instead, Andrew steps onto the mat. He feels it compress and wonders why the fuck he’s going to help.

“I don’t know who or what you’re running from, but it would be best if you told me.”

Neil stares him right in the eye. “Why? Why do you deserve anything else I don’t want to give?”

Andrew takes a step back. Puts just the barest distance between them. He’s never been this careful with someone before. He’s not sure what it means.

“I didn’t mean to take that from you.”

Neil is quiet when he answers. “I know.”

They stand across from each other and Andrew wonders why they’re here at all. Kevin can handle Neil. He should.

But Andrew looks at Neil and wants to know how he can fly so easily—how he can move through the air like there’s no risk of falling at all.

“I hate bars,” Andrew says. He nods toward the parallel bars in the corner. Tries not to feel like he’s pulling his insides out. “I don’t like heights.”

Neil looks at him incredulously. “I think you’re in the wrong sport.”

Andrew shrugs. He walks toward the vault and knows Neil is watching him. He stands at the end of the mat, past the vault and the white lines. He turns and stares at Neil. They are a world apart now, but he somehow feels like he hasn’t moved at all.

Those blue eyes are still there.

“Run.”

“What—”

“Run,” Andrew repeats. “Not for who or what. For you.”

He can see the anger and conflict on Neil’s face from a mile away. He sees it and knows something of the ghost that’s there.

Andrew waits, and Neil flies down the mat. When he flies, he is further than Andrew has ever seen him. His body twists in the air and he is a burst of energy and fire, red hair and tan limbs.

Neil lands on the mark and his eyes are fixed not on the distance—not on the invisible, not on who or what—but on Andrew.

There is something in the air that Andrew can’t name. He doesn’t think he wants to. It sparks across his skin and he is suddenly aware of how dark the gym is, and how no one else is there.

“Good,” Andrew says. It’s all he can say, and then he turns and walks out.

He can’t give any more. Not tonight. Not yet.

* * *

One more competition to go. One more, and Riko is positively furious. Neil almost smiles when he sees him snarl.

“Think he’s mad?” Neil murmurs.

Nicky giggles helplessly. “You know? I can’t tell.”

“Guys, he’s dangerous,” Matt says, but there’s a half-smirk on his face.

Neil shrugs. He turns to help Aaron wrap his wrists. He and Aaron have become something he thinks could be defined as friends. Mostly, Aaron just sends disgusted looks to Andrew when Andrew throws fits of pique and Neil agrees silently.

“All right, enough chit chat,” Wymack says. “This is it.”

There’s no motivational speech. That’s not how this works. They all have their methods, and most of those methods involve noise-canceling headphones or music.

Neil prefers silence. He shoves plugs into his ears and silently counts backwards. He’s the last to go, this time. The last and the most keyed-up.

They can make it, if he sticks the landing. If he or Kevin beat Riko. They could all make it.

Neil is behind Andrew the whole competition. He watches Andrew as he waits for his turn, and he thinks about how Andrew has been a silent helper the entire time. How he said he wouldn’t help and did anyway.

He’s about to take the vault when he notices something is wrong. He sees it just a little—a strange wiggle and the way Andrew’s arms look like they’re more strained than usual.

He knows. He knows in one second, and then the alarm sounds and he’s running down the mat like he has never run before.

This time, he is running to Andrew.

Neil barely feels his hands touch the springboard. All he knows is that he’s in the air and he turns so fast he shouldn’t know which way he’s facing, but he knows because of Andrew. Neil barely registers his feet hitting the mat, or the way he’s right in the crosshairs.

He lifts his arms, pauses, and then sprints off the mat.

Someone calls his name. He doesn’t care. All Neil can see is the way the bar Andrew’s on shakes, and then everything goes to hell.

The bar dips sideways. One side is broken or loose; he doesn’t have time to look. All he knows is the small figure that is moving toward the ground, and the fact that Wymack didn’t see it coming. Neil runs like he has never run before, feels his legs burn, and then he slides.

He catches Andrew.

The impact drives him to the mat, but the relief that floods him is crippling. Neil lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He gasps and feels the certainty of Andrew’s weight in his arms. He can hear people in the distance, but doesn’t pay attention to what they say.

Andrew looks up at him. Neil notices his eyes are hazel, like Aaron’s, but there’s more brown to them.

“I fell,” Andrew says. Short. Like it’s a fact and it’s fine, but it’s not. It’s not fine, because Andrew is afraid of heights but really, he’s always been afraid of falling.

Neil knows that.

“I caught you,” Neil says. “I saw.”

Andrew doesn’t answer. Wymack is there, and then there’s a fiasco over what happened and what to do. Neil doesn’t pay attention. He watches Andrew for the rest of the competition, even after they address the issue.

Even after he finds out he and Kevin both beat Riko together.

The team are exhausted and leave celebrations for the next day. For the night, they’re happy to be with the people they love and care about. They’re happy to have Andrew whole.

Neil couldn’t agree more.

* * *

Andrew finds him on the roof. His hair is wet from the shower and the hotel lights paint him blue and red.

“You could fall,” Andrew says. He shouldn’t, but he does.

Neil looks over his shoulder. Andrew remembers the freckles he saw on his face, when he was in Neil’s arms.

They weren’t bad arms.

“Maybe. You’d catch me.”

“I never promised that,” Andrew says. He can’t say no.

He hasn’t been able to say no to Neil for a while, now.

Neil is quiet. He passes a cigarette to Andrew. The stars above are just coming out. Andrew counts them while he waits for something else. Instead—for once—Neil is silent.

There’s no way around it. He has to say something.

“You didn’t have to. I don’t need anyone to catch me.”

That’s not what he meant to say. It’s not what he should say, but he does. He can’t say anything else. Not the other thing. Not what he means. What he feels.

“I know you don’t. Can I?”

“What.”

“Can I? Yes or no?” Neil leans closer.

Andrew knows he doesn’t mean what Andrew means. Neil thinks that this is just about trust. Just about being close, or connected. Maybe part of him guesses, but Neil just doesn’t know.

So Andrew lifts his hands to Neil’s face. They have calluses, he knows. They’re not the nicest hands. But Neil doesn’t flinch away, and Andrew has seen him respond to touch. There is nothing awkward about this. Nothing awkward in Neil’s blue eyes or lidded stare.

“Yes?” Andrew asks. A question with a question.

“Yes,” Neil says. His breath is a whisper and Andrew chases it to his lips.

It’s cold and he’s tired. He should be inside, in the room he shares with Aaron. He should be thinking about keeping Kevin on track to the Olympics.

Instead, Andrew sits with Neil on the roof and holds his face while they kiss. This is for him.

Neil’s hand curls around his wrist. It doesn’t hold Andrew; it just feels, like he’s checking for a pulse. Like he needs to know it’s real. Andrew kisses Neil and chases the hope he tastes with his tongue. He follows the moan in Neil’s throat. His hand races over Neil’s leg and he thinks about when he first saw Neil run down the mat.

Those shorts. God, he hates him.

When Neil breaks away, it’s because he’s out of breath. Of course, he kisses like a fucking moron and forgets how to breathe.

“Breathe.”

Neil laughs a little. “Easy for you to say.”

“Oh?”

“It was perfect. You are,” Neil says. He says it and he looks so dazed with his blue eyes and blush that Andrew can’t stand it.

He leans in again just to kiss Neil harder; to feel tongue and teeth and the slide of Neil’s mouth on his own. Andrew slides his hands under Neil’s shirt to feel the warm skin before he pins Neil’s hands to the roof. He wants to have him there, a blushing mess, for the rest of time.

He should probably stop.

Andrew pulls back and tries to even out his breathing. He feels Neil slump against him, head on his shoulder, and hears a weak chuckle.

“It’s cold,” Andrew mutters. “I’m going inside.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t get pneumonia. I won’t hear the end of it from Kevin.”

“Can I come with you?”

Neil asks quietly. A little uncertain, maybe afraid. Andrew tightens his hands on Neil’s wrists and drags his fingers down to tangle them together. He breathes in the smell of Neil’s soap.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> boy howdy is this late  
> i was gone all day and had no time to do this, but i hope you enjoy  
> an expanded gymnast au is all i want to write and you bet your ass a yuri on ice fusion is up my alley, too
> 
> you bet your ass falling is falling in love in this fic,, yes i am a sap, leave me alone,,,


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